Australian SFF – Dimension6

D6 is a free online magazine featuring three to four speculative fiction stories by mostly Australian authors. It’s published three times a year by Keith Stevenson of Coeur de Lion Publishing, and available to read online or by downloading an ebook edition.

I’ll just mention again – it’s free.

On a recent trip for work, I binge-read the five most recent issues. Let me tell you, those stories made several hours of lounging in empty terminals fly by.

Every issue has at least one outstanding story, if not all of them, and overall the quality is very high. I’d expect nothing less from Stevenson, whose editorial work on anthologies like X6 and Anywhere but Earth is excellent. And the regular appearance of Dimension6 stories in Australia’s various spec fic awards comes as no surprise.

There’s 11 issues out to date – the next one is due at the start of October – so there’s plenty to chew on. If starting from the beginning feels too intimidating, I highly recommend Issue 8, which had four terrific stories, including Thoraiya Dyer’s extraordinary “Going Viral”. But any of the issues so far will reward your time generously.

Or if you don’t want to take any chances, CDL sells annual collections of each year’s stories for just 99 cents. You can get all three years’ worth of Dimension 6 to date for less than the cost of…well, something priced at three bucks.

That’s good value.

PS: For personal recommendations, in addition to Thoraiya’s story above (which concerns politics, genetic engineering and dynastic drama in future southeast Asia), check out Simon Petrie’s “All the Colours of theTomato” (Issue #9), “Going Home Sideways” by S G Larner (Issue #5), Craig Cormick’s dream-weird “The Seven Voyages of Captain Cook” (Issue #10) and Robert Hood’s “Shark-God Covenant” (Issue #3). Those are some of the D6 stories that made the biggest impression on me.